When researching in old newspapers, don't count on the first name being right.

[shraby]

I have a county genealogical website and have all the tombstone transcriptions from all the cemeteries in the county. Many times the old newspapers will have a death notice and have the name of the father instead of the son who did die, or even a brother's name. I can tell because I have the transcriptions and can match the surname and date to the death notice. I usually check the census for the family and add that to the death notice.

Another thing they did was get the wrong sex for a childs death. Again, I can tell by the date of death. I'm very careful when adding obituaries/death notices to the tombstone transcriptions so I have the correct person.
I just wanted to let people here to be aware that newspapers were not infallible.

I have an advantage on my site as I have the census up to 1920, marriage info, cemeteries and the death index from the state and the county to help me add information to the correct person.

[BigmanPigman]

1. My mom has been researching our family for over 12 years

and she got a lot of info from the Mormon Church (I don't know why they have so much). We know with 100% accuracy about her side but the surprises came with my dad's side when she did one of those DNA kits and she has been kept busy ever since. She found out that my great, great.....grandmother was on the ship that came here after the Mayflower, called the Fortune, in 1621. I also found out I am not American Indian at all (I grew up thinking I was 1/16th). There is also a grave from the 1700s in the tiny little town I grew up in outside of Phila. We all live in CA now so I can't see it. If she keeps this up she is going to trace us back to an unknown home sapien living in the caves in France.

[murielm99]

3. The Mormons have a lot of information

because of their practice of baptism of the dead. They baptize all sorts of people into their faith, whether they are living or not.

A genealogist told me that.

[radical noodle]

8. That's true

and although they have some great information, they also have a lot of misinformation. Information from them should be verified elsewhere.

[yonder]

2. I've a question

It seems that my state keeps their Dept. of Vital Statistics data base locked up or unavailable to the general public. I don't know for sure that this is actually the case, but every time I've nosed around their website, I can't seem to get anywhere.

So my question: Do most/all states keep that database info restricted? I'm just curious.

[shraby]

4. Check at your local county courthouse. What's at the state is also kept there.

Also check with familysearch.com
It's run by the LDS and is free to use, you just have to register. They have a huger than huge database of vital stats from all over the U.S.
I use it all the time to get the death record because it helps me put the info in the correct cemetery. Not always, but often the cemetery is named where the burial took place.

[shraby]

5. In this state, Wisconsin, the marriage records are also kept at the state level

but each member of the marriage is listed separately and you have to have both parts in order to get the record.

I wanted to make a listing of all the marriages (only can get through 1906 here.) So I there was a set of microfiche with the marriages for this state on it and I was able to match most of them with names and dates of marriage.

The microfiche was also at the local library as well as one for births and deaths. I got a set for myself and went at it, pulling out the ones for my county. The local library can be a treasure trove in more ways than one.

The website usgenweb.org has a website for almost all counties in the country. Check them out. Some of the county sites are very good about putting stuff online. That's where I started with my site, then went independent. Our local library now owns it and I maintain it because I'm getting up in years and didn't want it to disappear. I add from 500 to 800 obituaries ever month. Mostly old ones.

[yonder]

6. shraby, thanks for your response

In the course of my work, I've spent much time researching at the county level mostly for assessors info., zoning, property records, tax id no.s, legal descriptions, surveys, etc. Thankfully, what used to be done in person can now largely be done online.

In my state, the county recorder rides herd on issuance of marriage licenses, birth and death certificates (what I call vital statistics) but that info is maintained by the state, near as I can tell. I don't know if that is typical of other states or not. The state website says they have all birth/death records after 1911 and all marriage/divorce records after 1947, while the counties may have older data prior to that.

However, it looks like the method for accessing that state info is formal with an application and fee process. I was thinking I could just punch somebody's name in and would get a relevant result, much as I would with a property ownership question. I don't know why the public information related to births and deaths would be harder to access than that of property stuff. That takes me to the original question of in your experience, is it normal for states to restrict it's access? Our state does have an online "repository" but that is for civil/criminal judicial rulings and such.

My interest in this is very casual and not related to genealogical research or anything. For example: "I haven't seen so and so for years, are they still living"? It's a case of my curiosity getting the best of me. Your suggestions are helpful, especially the local library angle.

Apologizing for the wordy reply, thanks again.

[shraby]

7. In this county, there is an index at the courthouse in the Register of Deeds office -

that's where vital records are also kept. An index for births, one for deaths and one for marriages. In the index is the name and date of event and the vol. number and page number in the record book so you can find the original and copy off the info or get a certified copy from the clerk.
The marriage ones and deaths I have put online for researchers. With my researchers help I was able to purchase the index for marriages and for deaths, too many to try to buy the births. (after wrangling with the department county and state for a while) They had to be made to understand that the index was public record and as such I could buy a copy at, it turned out, a dollar a page.

Much of these now are on the Familysearch.com site, but when I was doing it in the 1990s they weren't.
My goal right now is to try to put on obituaries for as many of the burials in my cems as possible up to around 2010 and get them linked to their tombstone transcription.

[The Genealogist]

9. I think I have a reason why information might be wrong in some of these old death notes/obits

I find quite a few that were written by "a friend of the family." Perhaps the family was in no state to write an obit, or family members were perhaps illiterate, or there were out of town guests to tend to. I've also seen, in older death records, especially death certificates, where children acting as informant did not always know their own grandparents' names. I suspect in those days, when families had moved away from their original homes and several states away, younger family members never met the folks back home. Often families recorded family demographics in a Bible, but in cases of moves or fires, these sources may have been unavailable.

[shraby]

11. Also the person taking the information for the record may not have spoken the

same language and had to record it phonetically. A name spoken to an Irishman by a German would be heard differently by a Frenchman (I say man because the people working in the newspaper or courthouse where those names were written down were men)

I've found that hardly anyone could spell French surnames. Most are different in every record or newspaper.

The surnames misspelling settled down around 1900 when most children were going to school and teachers taught them how to spell their surname, although the same family i.e. cousins going to different schools might not learn to spell their surname the same yet still come from the same family.

[LeftInTX]

10. About the only thing reliable on a death certificate is the date.....

The got my dad's sex wrong in the 1930 census.

My grandmother always called him, Johnny. In the census they have him listed as Jenny, sex was female.

(My grandmother didn't speak English)